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Researchers Use AI to Determine Preterm Infants’ Brain Maturity 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a wonderful thing. New software based on machine learning (ML) has been developed by researchers from the University of Helsinki and the Helsinki University Hospital (HUH) that can produce an estimate of a premature infant’s brain maturity using EEG signals.  It’s a major breakthrough as is the first of its kind in the world.


The new software is far more precise than any other method out there that can evaluate the development of an infant’s brain. “We currently track the development of an infant’s weight, height, and head circumference with growth charts. EEG monitoring combined with automatic analysis provides a practical tool for the monitoring of the neurological development of preterm infants and generates information which will help plan the best possible care for the individual child,” states leader of the research, Professor Sampsa Vanhatalo from the University of Helsinki.  “This method gives us a first-time opportunity to track the most crucial development of a preterm infant, the functional maturation of the brain, both during and after intensive care.”

Unfortunately, premature births happen quite often.  As many as one in ten live births is a premature one.  In the later stages of pregnancy, brain development within the fetus is rapid and changes happen almost weekly.  In order to develop correctly, the brain must be able to function first.  Various health issues connected with preterm birth can slow brain development.  Previous research carried out in the 1980s revealed that early health problems in preterm infants often led to slower brain development in the first few months.


If we are to try and develop new forms of treatment we need to first understand how brain functions in infants develop. EEG sensors are the most obvious choice for evaluating the maturation of the brain as are low-cost, non-invasive, and have gained a lot of credibility over the past few years.  However, according to Vanhatalo, “The practical problem with EEG monitoring is that analyzing the EEG data has been slow and required special expertise from the doctor performing it.  This problem may be solved reliably and globally by using automatic analysis as part of the EEG device.”

While the new software was primarily developed by Australian engineer, Nathan Stevenson, with the help of a few others. The EEG measurement data from preterm infants was gathered previously by Professor Katrin Klebermass’ research group at the Medical University of Vienna.  Using machine learning techniques the software was able to calculate several features of each measurement without the need for any doctors.  By combining these features (with the help of a support vector machine algorithm), the computer was able to generate an accurate estimate of the EEG maturation age of the infant.

Results from the study demonstrated that in over 80% of cases the infant’s real age and that which the computer predicted was within two weeks of one another.


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New Galactic Secrets Revealed

The Fornax Cluster is one of the closest and richest galaxy clusters to our own Milky Way galaxy. A recent image captured by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile reveals some of its hidden secrets.

One of the fascinating galaxies of the cluster is NGC 1316.  What makes it so special its dynamic history.  Having been formed by the merger of several smaller galaxies, NGC 1316 has large ripples and loops embedded in its starry sky.  These were first discovered in the 1970’s and still remain an active subject of observations today.


When NGC 1316 formed, there was a massive influx of gas as a result.  This fuels the supermassive black hole that sits in its center.  As the black hole accretes mass from its surroundings it emits powerful jets of high-energy particles that can be seen at radio wavelengths.  These jets are also what make NGC 1316 the fourth-brightest radio source in the sky.

Countless galaxies vie for attention in this dazzling image of the Fornax Cluster, some appearing only as pinpricks of light while others dominate the foreground. One of these is the lenticular galaxy NGC 1316. The turbulent past of this much-studied galaxy has left it with a delicate structure of loops, arcs, and rings that astronomers have now imaged in greater detail than ever before with the VLT Survey Telescope. This image was processed with the VST-Tube data reduction program. CREDIT  ESO/A. Grado and L. Limatola


This annotated view labels the major galaxies around NGC 1316, a lenticular galaxy that is both in the constellation of Fornax (The Furnace) and in the Fornax Cluster. This astonishingly deep view of the cluster was captured by the VLT Survey Telescope as part of the Fornax Deep Survey. Credit: ESO/A. Grado & L. Limatola — Download the full size; 138mb Click Here

Four type Ia supernovae are also thought to be present in NGC 1316. This is especially exciting as type Ia supernovae are used to measure how far away the galaxy, which is only made possible because of their intense brightness.  Using this method, researchers estimated NGC 1316 to be around 60 million light-years away.

These bright “candles of the night sky” are excellent markers to reliably measure the distance to such remote objects and are very sought after by astronomers.  They also played a key part in discovering that our Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.


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Safety Among Online Casinos

Spending money in the virtual world can make some people feel insecure, mainly because of rumors about people losing money due to online scams. Therefore, on the online market appeared trustful companies like PayPal.


Safe Online Casinos

Even though we don’t know when people started to gamble, the first gamble house was opened in Venice, 1638. Back then it was called “Il Ridotto” and provided entertainment during the carnival season.

Since then, many things have changed. First, it was the apparition of the regular casinos and later on, the online casinos. The internet is full of all types of gamble houses. Most of them promise big chances to win, but are they secure?

One of the secured online casinos is the Bellfruitcasino. This casino is licensed and regulated by the Gambling Commission of Great Britain. In this gambling house, you can play for free or try your luck with real money. Here, you have many ways to make transactions, but my favorite is PayPal.


Games Found in Bellfruitcasino

Most of the games found here are about slots, but it also has table games like American Poker, Roulette or Blackjack.

There is a wide variety of slot machines. From classic 3 reels to 4 and 5 reels. You can start with a simple game, like Random Runner, which is a 3 reel slot.

If you want something more complicated, Lucky Lady’s Charm Deluxe is a good example. It has 5 reel and 10 lines. The face of Lucky Lady is herself a winning symbol. This symbol will substitute all symbols, except for the Scatter symbol.


In Summary

As I said before, playing through a safe system is a must nowadays. There are still fake casinos that delete your account to steal your money or they simply “close” their website. For this reason, I recommend Bellfruitcasino because is known among gamblers and uses trusty transaction systems like Paysafecard or PayPal.

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How The Mobile Age Makes Following Sports Reports So Simple

The modern sports media seems to concentrate almost as much of the follow-up of a sporting occasion as it does with the build up. Sports such as baseball and American football have always been statistic-heavy, with enormous emphasis placed upon raw data when it comes to appraising the quality of athletes and team performance. Over the last couple of decades, this has slowly encroached into what may be considered more ‘romantic’ sports such as football, rugby, and cricket, making the post-match analysis often a debate of its own.


One of the key reasons for the increased prominence of post-match analysis is because of the way we consume our sports media. Millions of fans check out the sports news online – often several times a day – using their smartphones, and where there is web traffic there is simply a demand for fresh content. For example, you could just be browsing the web looking for some Grand National Betting Offers and within a click or two find yourself on racing sites that go to enormous detail assessing the form from previous races. The same is the case for football, with the fallout from the showcase Sunday EPL games often stretching well into the week.

Why can we attribute this excitement over post-match/occasion analysis to the mobile age? It is not just due to the aforementioned amount of web traffic that comes with easy 24-hour access to sports media. An equally important role has been sports fans taking a broader interest in other sports. Not too long ago it was pretty difficult for example for fans to follow overseas football leagues. What little coverage was broadcast tended to be magazine style highlights shows which filled the gaps with plenty of speculation and analysis of the fallout from the weeks matches.

Nowadays that old-fashioned level of coverage simply isn’t good enough. All of the leading online sports networks will have frequently updated sections on their websites showing not just highlights, but also offering expert analysis from the league itself. It is no longer a rarity for supporters to follow one or more ‘other’ team playing in a foreign league, and with that comes an expectation for an equivalent standard of post-match reporting and analysis as they enjoy with their domestic competition.


As European competitions have expanded and become more important than ever, fans pay attention to how overseas rivals are performing (for example Barcelona and Real Madrid match reports/news is a headline feature for BBC sports coverage). All of this has made it no longer a rarity to walk into any pub in the country and not overhear a discussion about overseas team’s playing styles, recent results, and comparison between teams.

This level of information and analysis is available 24/7 and a majority of sports phones use their phones to access this data. The amount of time a typical sports fan may spend checking out reviews from the most recent matches mounts up to a staggering amount over the course of a week. A speculative U.S study of their sports fans estimated that the average sports fan spends 52 minutes a day checking out sports news and reports – not including actually watching matches/events. Mobile now has the leading market share for how this information is reviewed, which over the course of a year adds up to hundreds of hours just checking out the sports news and analysis.

For the sports media industry, this is boom times and the expansion it has enjoyed worldwide in recent years is little short of phenomenal. The additional revenue generated by advertising has allowed networks and online resources to employ hundreds of expert pundits (including many former athletes) all eager to add their opinions to the after-action analysis and debate. As long as sports fans continue to gobble up this level of match reporting on their mobiles, it’ll only continue to grow especially as market exposure continues to rise across Africa, South America, and East Asia.


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Chicxulub Asteroid Made the Earth Much Cooler Than We Realised

Around 66 million years ago the Chicxulub asteroid hit the Earth with such force that it wiped out around 75 percent of all plant and animal species, including the entire species of dinosaurs that were alive at the time.  It happened near what we now call the Yucatan peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico. Researchers are now discovering that the impact had a much more climate-altering effect than first realized.


The new research involves making a more accurate estimate of just how much sulfur and carbon dioxide gas were pumped into our planet’s atmosphere following the impact. Authors of the study are now suggesting that the levels of sulfur emitted at the time may have been as much as three times more than we assumed. This means it was probably much colder too.

Its long been thought that the impact played a key role in the extinction event of the Cretaceous-Paleogene era, and this study fully supports that theory. “Many climate models can’t currently capture all of the consequences of the Chicxulub impact due to uncertainty in how much gas was initially released,” said Joanna Morgan, co-author of the study and a geologist at Imperial College London. “We wanted to revisit this significant event and refine our collision model to better capture its immediate effects on the atmosphere.”

The results of the study will hopefully give researchers a clearer picture as to how the Earth’s climate changed so rapidly following the asteroid impact. “The key finding of the study is that they get a larger amount of sulfur and a smaller amount of carbon dioxide ejected than in other studies,” said Georg Feulner, a climate scientist at the Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “These improved estimates have big implications for the climatic consequences of the impact, which could have been even more dramatic than what previous studies have found.”


When the impact happened all those million years ago, it threw masses of sulfur, dust, and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  The sulfur and dust merged to form a reflective cloud that kept out sunlight, reducing the Earth’s temperature dramatically as a result. Using a computer code that simulates the pressure of shock waves emitted by the impact, the researchers were able to estimate how much gas was released in various impact scenarios.  What they discovered was that around 325 gigatons of sulfur and 425 gigatons of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere at the time of the asteroid collision.

The new study had a much more accurate way than previous methods of determining the levels of gas in the atmosphere.  Here, the researchers only included gases that were ejected upwards at a rate of 1 kilometer per second minimum. Those that ejected at slower speeds had no impact on climate change, says Natalia Artemieva, co-author of the study and a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.  The new study also went by updated estimates of the impact’s angle (60 degrees opposed to 90 degrees).  With it being at this angle, much more sulfur was shown to be ejected into the atmosphere.  As well as gaining a deeper insight into the Chicxulub impact, the new method enables researchers to apply it to other large impacts to determine the amount of gas released there too.


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Five Things to do During Your Coffee Break

Use your coffee break for activities that will be beneficial to your health and mood. It’s always a good idea to simply leave your chair and move your body. If you stay put in the chair, chances are you won’t really get a break. So on your way to the coffee machine, you should engage in some different types of activities that will give your mind and body a much-needed break. Here are 5 great ideas for things you can do during your coffee break!


  1. Play Games

Don’t pay your bills or call the school to see if your child ate his lunch! Play some really entertaining games on your mobile phone. If you are embarrassed to show your colleagues that you enjoy a good puzzle game like Cube Blast, find a secluded place and have a go. Puzzle games can be good for your mental abilities. They are also relaxing and could give you that energy boost you need to make it through the afternoon.

  1. Get and give a message

Massage is great for so many things. Why don’t you offer a friend a nice back rub and get one in return? You could also get a simple head massager and use it on yourself or someone else to release some positive energies. But again, be sure to leave your chair and take care of the message in a different part of the office, so that you get a much-needed change of scenery.

  1. Tell some jokes

Laughter is great medicine, so exchange some jokes with friends. You could take turns to tell them. Perhaps set up a challenge where everyone has to tell a new joke every day. If you can’t think of any, you will easily find plenty online. You might also want to try to make funny faces. This will help you relax the muscles in your face while causing others to have a good laugh or at least crack a smile.


  1. Go for a walk

Walking is very good for you. Leave the office and see the world outside. You shouldn’t need a special reason for this. A walk around the block or even up and down the stairs will have your blood circulating and more oxygen will reach your limbs. Walk briskly or bring a friend for a combined stroll and chat. Fresh air is important to try to make that walk happen outdoors.

  1. Meditate

Meditation can help you deal with stress and negative emotions. Meditation does not have to be complicated. There is really no need to sit in a yoga position and try to reach Nirvana. All you have to do is get more mindful of your body and your surroundings. Closing your eyes for a few moments, you might realize that you are falling asleep. If this is the case you should consider going to bed a little earlier for a while, to get some extra energy.

Remember to vary the things you do during your coffee break. Doing the same thing all the time is not a good idea. You will get bored if you always play the same games or walk the same route. Do something different each day to charge your mind and soul.


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UCLA Researchers Create New Kind of Superlattice

A collaboration of engineers and scientists led by UCLA has developed a method for creating a new kind of superlattice that use alternating layers of two-dimensional sheets that are only a few atoms thick at the most.


These new superlattices are unlike anything scientists have ever created previously. One layer of the new kind of superlattice allows free-flowing electrons to swiftly pass through while the other layers act as an insulator. Being designed in this way ensures that the electronic and optical properties are confined to single layers, meaning they’re less likely to interfere with other layers.

Superlattices such as these can be the basis for a whole new class of electronic and optoelectronic devices. Such applications would include things like advanced LEDs and lasers and superfast semiconductors for transistors in various smart technologies.

This new method developed to create 2D superlattices is much more efficient than the conventional methods in place today. The way in which these superlattices are created uses alternating 2D atomic crystal sheets that are interspaced with molecules of different shapes and sizes.  This layer is held in place by weak electrostatic forces known as “van der Waals” forces acting as a second sheet.  These new superlattices are now referred to as “monolayer atomic crystal molecular superlattices.”

“Traditional semiconductor superlattices can usually only be made from materials with high similar lattice symmetry, normally with rather similar electronic structures,” said co-author of the study and UCLA professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, Yu Huang.  “For the first time, we have created stable superlattice structures with radically different layers, yet nearly perfect atomic-molecular arrangements within each layer.”


One method that’s currently used to build superlattices involves stacking the ultrathin layers on top of one another. The problem with this method is that it’s very labor intensive. And, due to the fragile parts involved it takes a long time to build.  Another method involves growing a new layer on top of the existing one via a process called “chemical vapor deposition.” However, that method is also very labor intensive and has low yield rates.

The new method involves applying a negative voltage to the 2D material through a process called “electrochemical intercalation.” As the negatively charged ions are injected into the material, it attracts positively charged ammonium molecules to the area situated between the atomic layers.  These molecules then assemble into new layers automatically, creating what’s now known as a superlattice.

“Think of a two-dimensional material as a stack of playing cards, said Xiangfeng Duan, a lead of the study and UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry. “Then imagine that we can cause a large pile of nearby plastic beads to insert themselves, in perfect order, sandwiching between each card.  That’s the analogous idea, but with a crystal of 2D material and ammonium molecules.”


To begin with, the team used black phosphorus to act as a base 2D atomic crystal material.  After their success with that, they moved on to try different types of ammonium molecules of varying size and symmetry to create a whole range of nee superlattices.  What the researchers discovered was that they could customize the structures of the layers of these new superlattices, meaning they could be great for making much faster transistors that are far more efficient than any that we have in use today.

5 Simple Tips for Maximizing Workplace Efficiency

Productivity has become a buzzword as of late. Why? Because organizations everywhere want to reap the benefits of reduced redundancy and maximized efficiency. And when it comes to the workplace, even a small positive change can have a large effect on revenue, employee morale, and overall performance.

Luckily, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to increase efficiency at work. Start with these five simple tips aimed at streamlining everyday processes.


Offer Flex Hours for Employees

Some people are morning people—eager to get started on their to-do list as soon as they wake up. Others need a few caffeinated beverages to get started, and even then, tend to do their best work later in the day. A little wiggle room in work hours can go a long way in accommodating these differences in people’s natural rhythm.

Some managers may be surprised to learn that flexibility increases productivity. This is why many companies are evolving past strict 9-to-5 requirements.

Flexibility may take the form of:

  • Nontraditional work hours,
  • The option to work remotely,
  • Freedom in structuring breaks.

Of course, businesses must develop a system of checks and balances to ensure workers are still, well, working. Emphasize that flexibility is a privilege; taking advantage of the laxer rules is not acceptable.

Leave Room for Breaks

Most of the time, productivity does not look like people furiously focused on a task for hours on end. The human brain is not wired to focus endlessly without reprieve. Research has found that the ‘perfect’ break is 17 minutes long, following 52 consecutive minutes of focused work.

Even if state laws dictate something like 15 minutes of break time per four hours of work, it’s beneficial to give employees more leeway. Brain breaks are vital to producing good work, so it’s useful to view break time not as ‘lost’ but as ‘much-needed.’


Meet Only When Necessary

Most employees attend 62 meetings monthly—and consider over half of those as time wasted. This hack is really simple: Only hold meetings when necessary. Oftentimes, a simple email will suffice. Plus, pulling employees out of their workflow to attend meetings tends to reduce focus and increase frustration. If you currently have daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly check-in meetings plus a host of training and ad hoc sessions, reconsider this approach.

Gauge Meeting Effectiveness

When you do hold meetings, you want each one to count. Otherwise, you’ll find your team having to revisit topics and stall action items over time. Hosting a short staff meeting game at the end of each conference is an easy way to gauge topic retention. The anonymous live poll results will reveal which topics employees are grasping and which ones they’re missing. Using this information, leaders can structure meetings in a productive way moving forward and end the cycle of important information slipping through the cracks.

Stay Current on Tech Trends

Keeping up with change can be a real challenge in even the most modern workplace. Technology is advancing in leaps and bounds, plus implementing new strategies usually involves getting multiple busy decision-makers on board before rolling out advancements. Investing some time and energy into staying abreast on the latest workplace technology can have significant dividends down the line, however.

Sticking to tried-and-true methods typically saves time up front but can be counterproductive if it prohibits your organization from adopting new applications, devices, and workflow tools. Keep an open mind and consider how new collaboration tools will actually save time and frustration after adoption. There’s a reason cutting-edge organizations tend to stay on top of the latest technology and productivity innovations.

Boosting organizational efficiency is a matter of minimizing redundancy while furnishing optimal conditions for employees.


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Researchers Discover it May be Possible to Prevent Spreading of Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer is a fatal disease with an average survival time after diagnosis of just six months.  Just 20% of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer survive past five years of being told.  The reason it’s so deadly is that the cancer is insidious.  It hides deep inside the human body, displaying no symptoms until in the very late stages when cancer has almost always spread to other vital organs.

New research carried out by a team led by the University of Pennsylvania, has discovered a potential new way in which to root out even the most hidden of cancer lesions.  After deleting the gene that encodes the protein there was a reduction as to the spreading of cancer to other organs and the mice lived longer lives.


“We thought that by targeting this protein we would see a big change in the primary tumor, and, while we do see a delay, the big change was in the metastasis,” said senior author of the study and chair of the Department of Biomedical Science in Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine, Ellen Pure.  “It looks like this protein might be a druggable target, so we’re hoping that with some additional follow-up work, it’s something that we’ll see go into patients.”

As part of her ongoing research, Pure has been widening her research efforts to gain a deeper understanding as to how tumors interact with the tissues that surround it.  In doing so, Pure and her colleagues have discovered that depending on the situation, stroma (normal tissues that envelop the tumor) will either allow, encourage or impede tumor growth.  “If you take a tumor cell and put it on normal stroma, it will typically inhibit tumor growth,” advised Pure.  “You need to have a permissive stroma to let a neoplastic cell grow out of control and eventually metastasize.”

Among other characteristics that determine whether or not the stroma is tumor-permissive, the tissue’s density and stiffness are definite contributors.  Stroma has the ability to contain tumor cells and prevent them from growing.  However, they can also promote tumor growth too, making it difficult for any drugs to reach where they need to.  Previous studies revealed that a protein-splitting enzyme called fibroblast activation protein (FAP) plays a key role in shaping the stroma, physically.


Last year, the researchers demonstrated how this enzyme digests collagen and enhances tumor growth.  When FAP was deleted in mice that had lung and colon cancer tumor growth was inhibited due to a sudden increase in collagen production that prevented the tumor from receiving an adequate blood supply.  “Collagen is something we have to understand a lot more about in the context of the tumor microenvironment,” said Pure.  “A lot of people think it’s just the amount of collagen present, but we’re showing that it’s more complicated; the architecture and structure play a critical role.”

Currently, the researchers are taking a closer look at pancreatic cancer as it’s a tumor type that’s dominated by connective tissue.  Their research will allow them to see if modulating FAP could stunt tumor the growth and if it had any role in making other organs more susceptible to lesions.  So far they’ve discovered that FAP-deleted tumors had a greater influx of white blood cells and more signs of necrosis.  They also found, more importantly, that FAP was able to reduce the spread of cancer from the pancreas to other major organs.

“This is the first time we’ve shown that FAP is important for promoting metastasis,” Pure said.  “By targeting FAP with a drug, we may be able to slow down the spread of cancer by treating distal tissues that you don’t even realize are getting to accept tumor cells, a phenomenon referred to as treating premetastatic niches.  That is the hope.”  Moving forward, Pure and her colleagues will be honing in on which particular aspect of FAP is responsible for promoting the progression of certain diseases.


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5 Signs It Is Time to Invest in Video Marketing

There are so many things you will have to do as a business owner to engage your audience. Failing to focus on keeping customers informed and engaged can lead to a lot of problems in the future. Most business owners fail to realize just how important it is to have an online presence. Neglecting to focus on creating an online presence will lead to you getting passed up by the competition. If you are looking for a unique way to engage your audience, then working with Spiel Creative to create an entertaining video is a great option. These professionals will help you give your brand a voice. A video will allow you to humanize your business and attract attention from a new audience. Here are some of the signs you may notice when it is time to invest in video marketing.

1. Your Conversion Rate is Very Low

One of the main goals you should have when creating social media pages for your business is getting people to visit your website. Without an increased amount of web traffic, you will have a very hard time increasing the number of customers you have. If you are starting to notice that your website conversion rate is getting really low, then chances are you could benefit from investing in video marketing services. For online businesses, including videos on your product pages is a great option. There have been a number of studies that found people who watch a video about a particular product are far more likely to buy it. If you are tired of your conversion rates being low, now is the time to do something. With the help of video marketing professionals, you should have no problem getting more people on your site and interested in your business.

2. Get Help With Brand Loyalty

The only way to have long-term success as a business owner is by keeping your customers loyal. Since modern consumers have so many options, keeping them loyal is getting harder than ever. By going the extra mile with a video. Consumers love to watch videos, especially if they are entertaining and engaging. Studies show that selling to an existing customer with the power of video is much easier than trying to entice new customers. Rather than letting your loyal customers feel neglected and ignored, you need to show them how much you value their business with the creation of a customized video. The time and money that is put into this process will be more than worth it in the long run.

3. You Aren’t on the First Page of Google

Most business owners gauge their online marketing success on what page of Google they are featured on. If your business is not on the first page of Google, you will need to work to fix this issues. Luckily, videos are great for improving your search engine ranking. Recent surveys show that nearly 79% of consumers would rather watch a video than reading text on a page. Instead of letting your competition leave you in the dust, now is the time to start embracing the power of video. With the right professional help, putting your message in a video for consumers will be much easier.

4. Consumers Are Having a Hard Time Understanding Your Business

Another problem that you may have that can be fixed with a great video is a lack of understanding of what your company does. If you have a hard time explaining to prospective customers what your company does, then making a video is a great option. This medium is ideal when trying to make complex subjects easier to understand. An experienced video marketing company will be able to help you create a great video representation of what your business does.

Before hiring a company to help you with this task, you need to take some time to do a bit of research.

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